Reformation 500 WEEK 39 Bloody Mary
“Princess Mary, the only surviving child
of Henry VIII and [his first wife] Catherine of Aragon, was dedicated in her
allegiance to the Catholic Church and Catholic Spain, the birthplace of her
mother” (DeMar, Reformation, 227). Mary remembered what happened to her
and her mother back in 1533. When Archbishop Cranmer had
declared her mother’s marriage to Henry unlawful so Henry could wed Anne Boleyn,
Mary was declared
illegitimate and removed from the line of succession to the throne. In 1544,
Henry reinstated Mary to the line of succession behind her half-brother,
Edward, born to Henry’s third wife Jane Seymour in 1537.
Before Edward VI died in 1553, knowing
full well that after his death Mary would restore Catholicism in England, he
devised a complicated scheme to prevent her from taking the throne. He named
his Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey his success-or. After Edward died, Jane
was proclaimed queen of England on July 10, 1553. Jane’s father-in-law, the
Duke of Northumberland, set out with forces to capture Mary, but before he
could do so she raised her own army and rallied other support-ers, prompting
the royal government to switch its allegiance from Jane and declare Mary the
legitimate queen. Jane, who had reigned for just nine days, was imprison-ed with
her husband in the Tower of London, and Northumberland was executed. Later,
Jane and her husband were tried, found guilty, and executed as traitors.
Queen Mary
worked to return England to Catholicism, undoing the reforms made by Edward. She
brought the Church of
England back under the authority of the pope, deposed Protestant bishops, and
restored traditional Roman Catholic worship. In 1554, she married King Philip of Spain, “the most
deadly foe of Protest-antism in all Europe. Many English Protestants fled
abroad: most found refuge in Germany and Switzerland [John Knox fled to Geneva].
Protestants who stayed behind in England were now arrested and tried for heresy”
(Needham,
2000 Years, 3:393).
“The most notable victims of Mary’s
persecution were the two bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley. As the
flames curled around their bodies Latimer spoke courage and comfort to his
fellow martyr: ‘This day we shall light such a candle, by God’s grace, in
England, as I trust shall never be put out.’” (Kuiper’s History, 226). Mary’s
next victim was Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, who was promptly
excommunicated. Even though Cranmer weakened and signed a denial of the
Protestant faith, Mary decided to make an example of him and burn him anyway.
But just before he was to die on March 21, 1556, he stunned everyone by
renouncing his denial and reaffirming his Protestant faith. As the flames rose
around him at the stake, the old archbishop in dramatic fashion held out the
hand which had signed the denial, “so that it was the first part of his body to
be burnt away” (Needham, 3:394).
Before she died in 1558, Mary had more
than 270 Protestants burned at the stake, earning her the name “Bloody Mary,”
given to her by John Foxe (1516-1587) in his famous Book of Martyrs. Foxe hoped the church would never forget.
At least the Anglican prayer book did not forget: “Keep us, O Lord, constant in
faith and zealous in witness, after the examples of thy servants Hugh Latimer,
Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer; that we may live in thy fear, die in thy
favor, and rest in thy peace.”
NOTE: These Posts were written and designed as bulletin inserts by Pastor David Fagrey of the Grace Reformed Church of Rapid City, SD .
Link to this blog entry as a bulletin insert: Reformation 500 History: Bloody Mary
For a double-sided PDF for easy printing: Reformation 500 Week 39
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